CMA's Fan Fair X will also return to the Music City Center, with performances on multiple stages, appearances and Q&A sessions with country stars and the Fan Fair X Marketplace. Tickets to Fan Fair X are $10 per day or $25 for four days. Children 8 and under are admitted free. Tickets are available through Ticketmaster at Ticketmaster.com or the CMA Music Festival Box Office by calling 1-800-CMA-FEST (262-3378.)

CLICK THE PHOTO ABOVE for a gallery from the party. Here, Vince Neil, of Motley Crue, performs at Big Machine's CRS party at Marathon Music Works in Nashville, Tenn., on Wednesday Feb. 19, 2014. (Photo: Karen Kraft / The Tennessean)

CLICK THE PHOTO ABOVE for a gallery of photos from this party. Here, Joe Don Rooney, left, and Gary LeVox of Rascal Flatts performs at the 2014 Big Machine Label Group Show At Country Radio Seminar on February 18, 2014 in Nashville, Tennessee. (Photo: Getty Images/BMLG)

Well, new music and alcohol. Big Machine Label Group president and CEO Scott Borchetta sprung for heavy appetizers and an open bar and had servers circulate the room with shots during the Country Radio Seminar week party.

Rascal Flatts kicked off the night with pop-heavy new song “Payback.” The trio followed it up with perennial favorites “Fast Cars and Freedom” and “Life Is a Highway.”

Members also shared multiple new songs presumably from their upcoming album, which they said from the stage would be released in May. Flatts’ new single “Rewind” made the set list as did new ballad “Memphis.”

Motley Crue announced plans to retire during a Tuesday press conference at Beacher’s Madhouse Theater in Hollywood, and what comes next involves Music City in at least a couple of ways.

The '80s rock band famous for hard living and hit songs including “Girls Girls Girls” and “Home Sweet Home” plans to play a final tour before hanging up the name for good. The 72-date run – which includes a show at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena on Oct. 15 – kicks off in July and runs through November. Alice Cooper will open the tour dates. Tickets for the Nashville show will go on sale 10 a.m. Friday through Ticketmaster.

“When you look at the song catalog, the songs are going to be the things that stand the test of time,” he said. “I’m going to match up some of my outlaw artists with some of these great songs and we’re going to go pretty wide.”

“Everybody that I brought this up to has been so excited,” Borchetta said. “We’re intentionally leaving a few slots open because now that we’ve announced this I know there’s going to be people who want to be on this record.”

Lenny Cooper and Charley Farley rap together for a music video for Cooper's song “Country Folks Anthem” on location at Wooley's in Mooreville, Tenn. (photo: Shelley Mays/The Tennessean)

It’s a little bit backwoods and a little bit street.

Southern sound with an urban beat.

It’s known as hick-hop — country narratives that add rap’s heavy bass and aggression to storylines about pickup-driving, beer-swillin’, chicken-and-biscuit-eating good ole boys.

“Just when you think everything’s been done in music, you look up and here’s a new amalgam,” country music singer-songwriter John Rich said.

The genre is getting attention as a grass-roots gig moving toward mainstream recognition — albeit with an unconventional approach.

A genre that doesn’t get much recognition in the radio world has had to market itself via YouTube, social media and targeted marketing with concerts in middle-of-nowhere, mud-boggin’ motorsport parks — where massive tires and trackside beverages accompany dirty, single-track race competitions.

The bulk of the fan base is “the countriest of the country people,” said Colt Ford, one of the genre’s most popular artists.

Actress/country singer Jana Kramer and gold-selling country singer Brantley Gilbert have called off their engagement, a representative of Gilbert’s record label The Valory Music Co., confirmed to The Tennessean.

The couple never shared many details about its big day with Kramer saying in April, just a week after she bought her wedding dress, that fans would know about the marriage the day after it happened. She said she and Gilbert wanted to keep some details of their relationship – like their wedding date – private.

A few months later, she told The Tennessean that they were putting the finishing touches on the ceremony and that it would be easy enough to figure out when it would happen – that all people had to do was compare her and Gilbert’s tour schedules to see when they both had the same days off work.

The two confirmed they were dating last fall, and they were each other’s dates for the CMA Awards in November. They moved in together and Gilbert proposed to Kramer on his birthday in January on stage at the Ryman Auditorium.

Neither Kramer nor Gilbert has mentioned the split on their official Twitter pages, but Kramer’s last two tweets indicate she is unhappy.

The marriage would have been Gilbert’s first and Kramer’s second. She was previously wed to fellow actor Johnathon Schaech.

The season finale of “Nashville” is Wednesday night, and the scene has been set for a three-way showdown with Rayna (Connie Britton), Teddy (Eric Close) and Deacon (Charles Esten) over the paternity of Rayna’s oldest daughter Maddie.

The last episode showed Maddie finding a paternity test revealing Teddy wasn’t her father, and in the preview she was shown telling Deacon she thought he was her father. An extended clip of the show on ABC.com included a heated exchange between Rayna and Deacon in which she admits the guitar player, even though he doesn’t remember it, did father her child. The news appears to send the long-sober Deacon back to the bottle.

In addition, it’s the night of the CMA Awards and Juliette (Hayden Panettiere), who is nominated, is on edge following the death of her mother in last week’s episode. When it is suggested the young singer not go on stage at the awards show because of her emotional state, she is even more determined.

Both Paisleys — country star Brad Paisley and his actress wife Kimberly Williams-Paisley — are set to be on the show this week. Williams-Paisley has spent much of the season in the role of Peggy, Teddy’s mistress, and the teaser suggests she has a big secret of her own to reveal this week. Paisley, who earlier this year sounded pensive in an interview with “Parade” about the possibility of appearing on “Nashville,” will perform with Rayna against the backdrop of the CMA Awards.

As for the cliffhanger, there’s still the rumor generated by E-Online that two characters will die in tonight’s episode. For those keeping count, that would total four deaths in the last two weeks if it’s true. And since the title of the season finale is “I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive,” it seems plausible that even more cast members could be on the way out.

See what happens when the show airs 9 p.m. Wednesday on ABC.

And go to Tennessean.com/abcnashville to see show quizzes, a map of area shoot locations, photo galleries and past recaps of all Season 1 episodes. Also, find photos from Wednesday night’s sold-out Tennessean viewing party at Bar Louie. Join the fun from your living room by joining our Facebook group at www.Facebook.com/groups/ABCNashville/

-- Trace Adkins faces Penn Jillette in the season finale episode of “All-Star Celebrity Apprentice” at 8 p.m. Sunday on NBC. The men each created ice cream flavors for Walgreens in last week’s episode and were charged with filming a commercial and organizing an event around the product. While that episode was taped months ago, the finale will be live. Donald Trump will crown a winner and award that person $250,000 for his charity.

Click to see a gallery of the third annual We're All for the Hall Concert benefitting the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum at the Bridgestone Arena Tuesday, April 10, 2012 in Nashville, Tenn. (GEORGE WALKER IV / THE TENNESSEAN)

Keith Urban is gearing up for Tuesday night’s We’re All for the Hall benefit concert for the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. He organizes the event every year with Vince Gill, and this year’s theme of outlaws has provided Urban with the unique opportunity of finally playing with Loretta Lynn.

Urban and Lynn have a history: He was once her date to CMT’s Flameworthy Awards and has fond memories of the evening.

“I got a call from Loretta’s manager saying, ‘Would you like to take Ms. Loretta to the awards,’ ” Urban recalls, laughing. “I had the best night sitting next to her, hearing her stories and her commenting on every person that performed on the stage. It was a lively evening. I’m looking forward to actually playing music with her this time.”